DAVID WHEELER: Thoughts on graduation

Two days from now I will be standing on stage and shaking the hands of 280 graduates from the Southeastern Regional class of 2013. This is the sixth time I’ve been privileged enough to do this and it never gets old. The ceremony stays the same but the people change every year.

By David Wheeler

The Patriot Ledger, Quincy, MA

By David Wheeler

Posted Jun. 3, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Jun 3, 2013 at 3:02 AM

By David Wheeler

Posted Jun. 3, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Jun 3, 2013 at 3:02 AM

» Social News

Two days from now I will be standing on stage and shaking the hands of 280 graduates from the Southeastern Regional class of 2013. This is the sixth time I’ve been privileged enough to do this and it never gets old. The ceremony stays the same but the people change every year.

Along with the celebration, there’s always a bit of melancholy as well. Students will miss their teachers and vice versa. Someone once said to me that teaching is like mailing a long letter, one that you pour your heart and soul into, and never knowing whether it was received.

Yet no matter what our students go on to do, what we sometimes forget is how we all keep a little piece of each other through the journey of life. Not to mention that, as a vocational school, we have a pretty good idea of what most students go onto to do since they’ve been doing it in their vocational programs.

This year, for the first time, more than sixty percent of our graduates plan to attend some form of higher education. We have students accepted to four-year schools, community colleges, trade schools and apprenticeship programs, including Umass Dartmouth, Bridgewater State University, Wentworth Institute of Technology and WPI.

As for the other forty percent, most of them have secured employment in their chosen field, many through our cooperative education partnerships with local businesses. These are the electricians, plumbers and contractors of tomorrow.

While placement is great, one long-term question that schools are grappling with at the moment is how to prepare kids for the jobs of the future when we don’t know exactly what those jobs will be. In many ways it’s like studying for a test without knowing what subject you will be tested on.

Who’s to say what skills the machinists of the future will need when we keep inventing new machines? With every new medical advancement, people in healthcare need to be trained and re-trained. The learning never stops. And this is the common thread, the one thing that binds us all in this new, fast-paced economy of ours – acquiring and using knowledge or, in other words, change.

As little as ten years ago, if you had told me I’d be reading the Boston Globe on my telephone every day, I wouldn’t have believed it. But now I can’t imagine getting my news any other way. So who knows what the future will hold?

Graduation is a time to reflect on where we’ve been and to look forward to where we are going. And even if we don’t always have a roadmap for the future, we have each other and our shared history to help us find the way. I know the Southeastern graduates from the class of 2013 will be successful because they have more than 40 years of successful graduates whose footsteps they can follow.